Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Originally Posted by Letter to the Editor, WSJ

Regarding your editorial "Censors on Campus" (Jan. 18): Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich."

From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these "techno geeks" can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a "snob" despite the millions she has spent on our city's homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.

This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendant "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court is eviscerating campaign donation limits due to the 5 Republican appointed members of the U.S. Supreme Court, I really say fuck the Republican Part. Scalia really sucks, and not just because his last name is so close to mine alphabetically.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

There are some Democrats in the California state legislature pushing to give all workers 3 days of paid sick leave, but the stupid Republicans oppose this. Everyone in California should sign a petition on this subject requesting this worthwhile bill becomes law. http://act.aflcio.org/c/130/p/dia/ac...ction_KEY=8494

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

So I'm driving down the road yesterday and i see a political sign, some guy running for governor. "STOP COMMON CORE" was his slogan. So I googled it.

Facts: Common Core is an independently constructed, bipartisan, set of educational standards, developed largely with funding from the Gates foundation, to improve the education system. Teachers unions support it, business leaders support it, educational experts support it.

Spin: Apparently the ultra-right bizarro faction has decided that Common Core is an Obama-led international liberal conspiracy to poison the minds of our youth.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Um. Not just conservatives hate the common core, Tom. Plenty of liberals and progressives and teachers and educational experts hate it because it's a bullshit educational policy. Arne Duncan is absolutely terrible. Diane Ravitch has made some incredibly compelling arguments against the Common Core.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

The bible bangers win:

Supreme Court rules against Obama in contraception case

Washington (CNN) -- The Supreme Court ruled Monday that closely held companies cannot be required to pay to cover some types of contraceptives for their employees, ending its term with a narrow legal and political setback for a controversial part of President Barack Obama's health care reform law.
In a 5-4 decision, the high court's conservatives essentially ruled that some for-profit corporations have religious rights.
Supreme Court rules against Obama Pro-choice group: This is discriminatory Court rules in favor of Hobby Lobby
The owners of Hobby Lobby, furniture maker Conestoga Wood Specialties and Christian bookseller Mardel argued that the Affordable Care Act violates the First Amendment and other federal laws protecting religious freedom because it requires them to provide coverage for contraceptives like the "morning-after pill," which the companies consider tantamount to abortion.
The decision, which comes two years after the justices narrowly preserved the Affordable Care Act and its key funding provision, could serve as a primer for other pending challenges to the health law.
Photos: Today\'s Supreme Court Photos: Today's Supreme Court
The issue before the justices was whether Obamacare could mandate contraception coverage specifically for certain businesses that object for religious reasons.
"This case isn't that practically important, except for the employees and businesses involved. There just aren't a huge number of those," said Thomas Goldstein, publisher of SCOTUSblog.com and a Washington appellate attorney.
"But everyone can agree the social questions presented -- about when people can follow their religious convictions, and when people are entitled to contraception care -- are truly important," he said.
Read the ruling (.PDF)
Contraception mandate
The section of law in dispute requires for-profit employers of a certain size to offer insurance benefits for birth control and other reproductive health services without a co-pay.
A number of companies equate some of the covered drugs, such as the so-called morning-after pill, as causing abortion.
The specific question presented was whether these companies can refuse, on the sincere claim it would violate their owners' long-established moral beliefs.
The First Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
"How does a corporation exercise religion?" asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor at March's oral arguments, summarizing perhaps the key constitutional question at hand.
"This is a religious question and it's a moral question," added Justice Samuel Alito, suggesting the businesses have such a right. "You want us to provide a definitive secular answer."
Conestoga, Hobby Lobby
The justices have a good deal of discretion to frame the competing issues and could reach a limited "compromise" through narrow statutory interpretation.
They could conclude individual owners can make the religious freedom claim, bypassing the corporate rights argument, but still give female workers the flexibility to get covered drugs.
The court weighed two related appeals from Conestoga Wood Specialties, a Pennsylvania cabinet maker, and Hobby Lobby, an Oklahoma-based retail giant that will have more than 700 arts-and-crafts stores nationwide by year's end.
Both corporations emphasized their desire to operate in harmony with biblical principles while competing in a secular marketplace. That includes their leaders' publicly stated opposition to abortion.
The case presented a complex mix of legal, regulatory, and constitutional concerns over such thorny issues as faith, abortion, corporate power, executive agency discretion, and congressional intent.
Health law impact
The political stakes are large, especially for the future effectiveness of the health law, which marks its fourth anniversary this year.
The botched rollout last fall of HealthCare.gov, the federal Obamacare website, has become another political flashpoint along with other issues that many Republicans say proves the law is unworkable.
They have made Obamacare a key campaign issue in their fight to overtake the Senate, and retain control of the House.
Supporters of the law fear a high court setback on the contraception mandate will lead to other healthcare challenges on religion grounds, such as do-not-resuscitate orders and vaccine coverage. More broadly, many worry giving corporations religious freedom rights could affect laws on employment, safety, and civil rights.

The Hahn family, owners of Conestoga, and the Green family, owners of Hobby Lobby, said some of the mandated contraception prevent human embryos from being implanted in a woman's womb, which the plaintiffs equate with abortion.
That includes Plan B contraception, which some have called the "morning after" pill, and intrauterine devices or IUDs used by an estimated 2 million American women.
A key issue for the bench was interpreting a 1993 federal law requiring the government to seek the "least burdensome" and narrowly tailored means for any law that interferes with religious convictions.
Monday's decision comes two years after the justices allowed the law's "individual mandate" to go into effect.
That provision requires most Americans to get health insurance or pay a financial penalty. It is seen as the key funding mechanism to ensure near-universal health coverage.
Under the Affordable Care Act, financial penalties of up to $100 per day, per employee can be levied on firms that refuse to provide comprehensive health coverage. Hobby Lobby, which has about 13,000 workers, estimates the penalty could cost it $475 million a year.
The church-state issue now in the spotlight involves rules negotiated between the Obama administration and various outside groups. Under the changes, churches and houses of worship are completely exempt from the contraception mandate.
Other nonprofit, religiously affiliated groups, such as church-run hospitals, parochial schools and charities must either offer coverage or have a third-party insurer provide separate benefits without the employer's direct involvement. Lawsuits in those cases are pending in several federal appeals courts.
Second generation
Monday's decision could signal how the court will approach other lawsuits against the health care law.
"We're now getting the second generation of challenges to Obamacare -- about the actual adoption of the statute, and its core provisions," said Goldstein. "We're probably going to see cases over the next five to ten years, as more and more details about the law get put into effect."

Originally Posted by RandyInHeaven

Devin - how does it feel to know that there are still more women in the world that would fuck me at this very moment than would fuck you?

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Tom, the issue is MUCH more convoluted than that, in part because the Common Core standards were developed largely by non-educators. Implementation thus far has been problematic as well as it tends to overprioritize certain types of thinking without giving options to extend lessons beyond its scope. It's also been described as more a system to test teacher effectiveness than a way to support better educational standards.

Rob has some very eloquent views on the subject. It's not a fringe issue like that sign might suggest.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

As someone who regularly does homework with a nine year old, my objection to Common Core is pretty much the one made by Louis CK: the way they try to teach things makes no fucking sense.

As to the broader politics, most of the opposition I see is of two varieties: 1) the wingnuts think it is a crypto fascist/socialist method of indoctrination for the New World Order and homosexuality, and 2) public education unions don't like it because it requires a bunch of (possibly unnecessary and wasteful) standardized testing that disrupts class time, but really because the testing also implicates the hot-botton issues of teacher "performance" and tenure rights. I don't know that I'm persuaded by either class of objections, but I'm willing to listen.

It's one of those weird issues -- like genetically modified crops -- where the hardcore on both sides come out against the technocratic middle, and I'm not sure for the best. I get that there may be significant policy problems with Common Core (again, I'm muddling through the bullshit homework every night), but I also get a real flavor that a lot of people opposed to it simply don't want national education standards of any kind, either because they are crazy or because they are in a teacher's union.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Having taught in three different Common Core classrooms last year, I can assure everyone that the lessons make absolutely no sense.

The problem with national education standards is that they ignore the very real fact that a large part of how people learn has to do with their cultural and social background. A student in rural Mississippi is going to learn very differently from a student in a nice San Francisco public school. National standards ignore that, which is potentially destructive in the field of education.